


apple & tree

by nasa



Series: inheritance [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Anxiety, Depression, Fame, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, News Media, Post-Endgame, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 07:43:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18069368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nasa/pseuds/nasa
Summary: Peter’s secret identity was a lost cause from the moment he open his eyes in the soul world.-After the Annihilation, things are different.





	apple & tree

**Author's Note:**

> this is my MTH fill, like two months late, for the lovely, lovely General Organa. thank you so so much for bidding on my work, and i hope you enjoy the fic!!
> 
> and a MILLION thanks to partialtotheperiwinkleblue for the speedy beta!!

Peter’s secret identity was a lost cause from the moment he open his eyes in the soul world.

It wasn’t because he didn’t have his mask, though he didn’t. It was just in the nature of the place. There was no way to hide in the soul world, not from yourself or anybody else: you wore your secrets on your sleeve for all to see.

Time ran differently there, twisting and stretching like malleable putty, but even so, over time, other souls came to learn who Peter was. They were never quite able to tell him what they thought: what he perceived more were vague impressions, memories. An elderly gentleman who couldn’t believe he was actually Spiderman. A woman he once saved from an armed robbery. A mother, heartbroken by the idea that someone so young would have to serve. Admiration and respect and disbelief and derision and, overwhelmingly, love.

It’s a dream-like tide he rides straight up until he wakes, gasping, in Tony Stark’s arms.

“Hey, Mr. Stark.” He’s pretty sure Tony is crying, but it’s hard to tell, around the soot and dust and blood coating his face.

“Pete,” Tony says, and pulls him into a hug.

It’s not until Peter catches the knowing gaze of Sam Wilson over Tony’s shoulder that he remembers all that’s transpired. All he can think then is,  _ what the hell do I do now? _

-

In a world where half of the universe’s population was turned to dust and then magically resurrected, you would think that the identity of a small-time superhero would be the least of everyone’s worries. But, of course, that would be too easy; instead, when Peter steps into the hallway his first day back at school after what the living population has dubbed ‘the Annihilation’, everyone immediately goes silent.

The students all watch him with a sort of dead-eyed stare. Maybe there is a sense of astonishment in there, but certainly an anger too, as though they mean to say:  _ you could have stopped this. Why didn’t you stop this? _

In homeroom, Peter sinks low into his a chair next to Ned, one of the few remaining. It’s remarkable, how much the room has changed: there are half as many seats as before, half as many desks. Peter wonders what they did with the rest of them.

“You okay?” Ned asks, voice low.

“I’m fine,” Peter says, tugging his hoodie a little tighter around his face. “Worse things have happened, right?”

And it’s true. The students do stare, but it’s something Peter is used to, and at least they don’t interrupt class to ask him about being an Avenger or take selfies or anything. The resurrection of half the universe tends to dull most other excitements, and Peter thinks he may be lucky enough to be one of those things.

The moment Peter steps outside the school gates, his Spider sense starts tingling. Like an electric bolt has shot up his spine, Peter swerves to the left, and just a moment later watches a bullet whip through the air where he was just standing.

He moves on instinct, webbing up the perpetrator before he has time to fire another round, but the guy’s not even fighting. His face is pinched and red, jaw set, lip wobbling.

“You could have saved them,” he croaks from where he’s curled up on the pavement, wrapped in webs like a cocoon or a straightjacket. “You  _ bastard,  _ you could have saved them.”

Because that’s the rub: for all the people who were dusted and brought back to life, there are people who weren’t so lucky. People who died in plane crashes when their pilots dissolved; kids who went through windshields when their parents disappeared and the car went rogue; entire communities burnt to ash when unattended nuclear power plants imploded.

“I’m sorry,” Peter says, at a loss from what else to say. “I’m sorry, I - I did my best.”

The guy’s gasps dissolve into sobs, and all Peter can do is stand there, helpless, hands by his sides. It’s all too easy to see himself crying on the ground, to see Ned or Tony or May. He can’t stop staring, but he can’t do anything else, either, like he’s stuck in an undertow, spun all around but unable to get free. Around him is the murmur of his fellow students, of parents and bus drivers and administration, judging, commiserating, wondering what to do next.

The man cries, and Peter watches.

-

Peter finally makes it home a little while later, after he’s informed the appropriate authorities and filled in the necessary forms and ducked away from the curious eyes.

He’s strangely exhausted by the time he gets home, wanting nothing more than to slump onto his bed and sleep for a year or two, but he doesn’t have the opportunity. Instead, when he opens the door he’s greeted with yet another policeman, this one talking to a shaken Aunt May.

“May?” Peter asks, dumping his backpack and hurrying over to the couch. She’s not curled up, not quite, but her knees are hugged to her chest, and her cheeks are pale. “Are you okay? What happened?”

“I’m fine, Peter,” May says, offering a tight smile.

“There was an incident, today,” the officer explains before Peter can ask. “Someone came here looking for you. Apparently your address has been leaked online, someone holding some sort of grudge saw it. We got the guy in custody, he won’t be bothering you anymore.”

“Are you really okay, though?” Peter presses, turning back to Aunt May. “Because you can tell me if you’re not, I won’t freak out -“

“She’s fine, Chuckie,” someone behind Peter says, and he almost jumps out of his skin when he turns and finds it’s Tony, Iron Man suit and all.

“Mr. Stark,” he says. “What are you doing here? I thought you had a meeting today.”

“This is more important,” Tony says. He taps his chest and his suit begins to recede into his arc reactor, like a dropping tide. “I checked the perimeter, everything’s good for now. I also installed plenty of security, so your Aunt will be just fine. You, on the other hand -“

“What?” Peter presses, when Tony doesn’t continue. “What’s going on?”

“Tony and I talked before you got here,” May says quietly. “We agreed it’d be best if you went away for a while. For your safety.”

“For my - but I need to be here, May, what if something like this happens again, and -“

“She’ll be safer without you here, Pete,” Tony says. Despite his soft tone, the words strike Peter like a blow to the chest.  _ It’s your fault,  _ he hears. “Trust me, it’s for the best.”

“I -” Peter fumbles for words and can’t find any, so switches directions. “May, I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to - I’m so sorry I put you in danger, I swear I didn’t mean to -”

May reaches out and grabs Peter’s hand, squeezing it tight. “Shut up,” she says, with that same transparent smile. “It’s not your fault, Peter. I don’t blame you, I don’t want you to think that. It’s just - it’ll be safer, this way. For both of us.”

Peter looks down at Aunt May’s hand in his. He swears she’s aged so much in the past two years, far more than she should have, and it reflects all over her body. Her hair, newly dotted with grays; the deep wrinkles now set in the lines of her cheeks; the scuffs and calluses of her hands, which she’d previously been so careful to take care of, keep soft and clean.

“Will I still get to see you, at least?” Peter asks, embarrassed by how much his voice shakes.

“Of course,” May reassures instantly. “Oh, sweetheart, of course. This isn’t goodbye. It’s just - you’re going to college next year, right? Just think of it like that. I’ll still call you every day, and I’ll see you on the weekends and everything.”

“Why can’t you come to the Compound with us?” Peter croaks, voice small.

“Because there’s work that needs to be done here, lovebug,” May says quietly. If Peter hadn’t already known she was serious, that nickname would have shown him: she hasn’t called Peter that in years, not since he was a little boy who woke up screaming from nightmares of an empty house, a man in a shadow suit emerging from a dark corner, an airplane crashing into white flames.

“And you need to be the one to do it?” Peter feels selfish for even asking, but May just sighs, rubbing her thumb on the back of Peter’s hand.

“I need to help,” May says. “I wouldn’t be any help at the Compound, not like you would.”

Peter almost wants to argue that point - after all, what help was he, really, when it came down to it? He did nothing, saved nothing, and half the world died - but he just nods.

“I understand,” he says roughly, because he does. How can he blame her? He said it himself - if you help stop bad things from happening, and you don’t, then you’re the reason they happen. If he can’t justify himself acting otherwise, he can’t expect her to.

“It’ll be fine, Peter,” May reassures him. “I promise, everything will be good. You’ll see.”

Peter glances up from the couch towards Tony, who’s still standing quietly in the corner of the room, just watching Peter and May talk. He offers Peter a half smile, but doesn’t say anything else, like he’s waiting for Peter to speak.

“Yeah,” Peter says finally, as wrong as it feels - like a twisted knot of iron sitting heavy in his stomach. “Yeah, okay.”

-

Which is how Peter ends up at the Compound that Sunday afternoon, duffel bag dangling off one shoulder, backpack on the other.

“Welcome, Mr. Parker,” Friday says, as soon as Peter sets foot inside the door. “Mr. Stark is in his workshop. Can I interest you in a snack?”

“Uh, no thanks, Friday,” Peter says. “I’m just - I think I’ll just go to my room, if that’s okay?” Normally, he’d be all over whatever fancy food Tony’s stocked the fridge with this week, but today he feels very - low. It’s irrational, he knows, but he can’t stop thinking about May, home alone in their apartment, and every time he looks around he can’t help but think:  _ this is my new home now.  _ It’s a weird feeling, and not entirely welcome.

“Certainly,” Friday agrees. “Please let me know if you need anything.”

Peter gives an awkward nod - so sue him, he’s a teenager, he’s not good at normal social interaction let alone exchanging weirdly formal niceties with his mentor’s AI servant - and heads towards his quarters. It always sounds pretentious to him when he refers to them like that, but that’s what they are, really - not just a room but a full-on suite, with a little sitting room and walk-in-closet and possibly the largest, most lavish bathroom Peter has ever seen in his life. Other than Tony’s personal bathroom, of course.

The room is just as he’d left it the last time he was up here, almost two years ago. It surprises him, a bit - not that he’d really expected Tony to do a major renovation in his absence, especially with everything else going on, but the room looked almost as though it belonged in a museum, tomb-like in its stillness and careful preservation. Peter almost doesn’t want to touch anything, be it the bedspread or his own discarded sweatshirt flung over the top of the dresser, and he has to remind himself that it’s okay - it’s his own stuff.

Still moving a little awkwardly, Peter cleans up a few of the things he’d left the last time he was here - an empty Skittles wrapper, the sweatshirt, a novel Peter started and never finished - before pulling out his laptop and starting to work on homework for his coding class. He plays the Office in the background, and the combination of one of his favorite shows and an enjoyable, menial task gets time slipping by him. He only jolts into awareness when there’s a sharp knock on his door.

Peter turns to find Tony standing there waiting for him, wearing his usual grimy workshop attire. “Hey, kid,” he says. “When did you get in?”

“Uh -” Peter glances back at the clock on his computer. “A few hours ago?”

“A few hours?” Tony makes a face. “Why didn’t you tell me? I’ve got stuff in the workshop waiting for you.”

“Well, homework,” Peter says.

Tony makes another face, this one more exaggerated. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that,” he says, and Peter is struck by the sudden memory of Tony in his apartment, four years ago, eye blackened but posture straight.  _ I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that,  _ he had said. God, that was so long ago. He had been so starstruck, so in love with the idea of someone like Tony Stark. If you had told him then, where he’d be now, he would have been thrilled. Now, Peter’s not so sure.

“Well, I’ve just got to finish this coding thing and then I can come down,” Peter says.

Tony’s eyebrows shoot up. “Coding? You didn’t tell me you were in a coding class.” He crosses the room in a few long strides, settling on the side of Peter’s bed and snatching his laptop from his lax grip. “Oh, this is easy. You can do harder stuff than this.”

“It’s an Intro class,” Peter says.

“Still.” Tony mashes a few keys, typing so fast Peter has no idea how he isn’t making a million typos, and a moment later, passes the computer back. “Here you go,” he says, and only then does Peter realize Tony has finished his assignment.

“I really should have done that myself,” Peter says, but it’s a reluctant protest. He likes coding, but sometimes these simple assignments feel like busy work  - if he didn’t have to take this class as a prerequisite, he would have just skipped ahead to the Advanced Seminar. At least he gets to take the class with Ned - the silver lining, he supposes, of having your best friend dusted with you.

Tony just  rolls his eyes as he stands. “Come on, Wonderkid, I’ve got upgrades for you.”

Turns out ‘upgrades’ means ‘a brand new, completely renovated suit based on nanotech and made out of vibranium bartered from Wakanda - and, really, what else did he expect? Peter spends a solid ten minutes just gaping at it, retracting it and re-suiting the mannequin before Tony interrupts him with a little shove towards the suit. “Moment of truth.”

The suit fits like a glove, because of course it does, and Tony and Peter end up whiling the rest of the afternoon away just testing it out. They run through a few training simulations and then a few less-justifiable games, and at the end of the night, when Peter’s scrubbing the paint-ball splatters off his suit as Tony orders in for pizza, Peter realizes the lingering heavy feeling in his chest has disappeared. 

“You gonna make me get pineapple on yours?” Tony calls over.

“You mean do I have taste? Yes.”

Tony rolls his eyes, hard. “Heathen,” he mutters, but when he turns back to the phone, he obligingly orders three Hawaiians. 

Something swells in Peter’s chest that he can’t quite identify. “Get me Cherry 7-Up, too,” he calls, instead of thinking it over any longer. “A big one.”

“The fridge is fully stocked with your gross sugar sludge,” Tony yells back, and Peter has to bite back a grin. He doubles down on his scrubbing.

-

Peter’s first few days at the Compound pass relatively uneventfully, as strange as they feel in the moment. Peter’s new commute to school, the absence of daily dinners with May, even just the small detail of waking up in a different bed each morning - it’s all a change, and every change requires an adjustment. But if it’s bitter, it’s sweet, too, because he would be lying if he was saying there weren’t any benefits. Tony, for one - it’s not like he’s moved in with a stranger, after all, and though Tony’s not May, he’s still one of the most supportive adults in Peter’s life. Every time Peter wishes he could go home and hug May, eat her gross cooking or play Monopoly with her in the living room, Tony is there with his greasy takeout and physics lessons and hair ruffles. Really, in the end, it’s hard to be mad about that.

So it’s not great, but it’s not horrible, either, and as the days tick by, everything begins to slide into slow mundanity. Tony stocks Peter’s bathroom with his usual brand of toothpaste, reserves the training room for Peter to practice in when he gets home from school, and, though Peter can’t confirm it, he suspects Tony starts getting up earlier in the mornings so he can be in the kitchen with a tablet and a mug of coffee when Peter stumbles down from his bedroom, one-socked and starving for some Fruity Pebbles.

Ned comes to visit for a weekend, and almost shits himself at the level of tech in the building. He ends up spending half the day Saturday trying to administer his own version of the Turing Test to Friday without her knowledge, but it’s fine because it gives Peter time to run through a few drills with the Iron Legion. May doesn’t come up to visit right away, but Peter goes to her, visiting her a couple days a week after school, and, no, it’s not like before, but it’s good.

Then it all gets thrown out of whack when one Saturday morning, Peter stumbles into the kitchen and finds Captain America scrambling eggs on the stovetop.

For a very long moment, he thinks he must be dreaming. Captain America - Steve -  _ Captain America  _ is wearing sweatpants and an Iron Man t-shirt, and cooking breakfast in Peter’s kitchen. 

“Uh,” Peter says.

Cap whirls around. “Oh! Hi, you’re Peter, aren’t you?”

“Uh,” Peter says again.

Cap’s brow furrows a bit, but he’s still smiling. “Sorry, would you rather I call you Spiderman? Sorry, I didn’t realize you were living here, I didn’t mean to barge in on you or anything.”

“Hnnnngh,” Peter says.

Cap’s smile starts to fade. “Is there something wrong? I just got here last night, if there’s some rules I’m missing or something -”

“Oh, god, please tell me you’re not drooling over Steve like a dog with a bone.”

Peter manages to yank his eyes away from Cap long enough to look at Tony. “It’s Captain America,” he says hoarsely.

Tony raises an eyebrow at him. He, too, is wearing pajamas, though for him that means a monogrammed silk set rather than ratty cotton. “Yes, good observation skills. You know, you have met him before.”

“Yeah, but.” Peter waves a hand in the air helplessly. “ _ Captain America.” _

“I should have known when you said he was a lot like you that he would have had some hangups over me.”

Peter’s gaze whips back to Cap, who’s grinning at Tony, now, but a different sort of smile, that seems less all-American sweet and more smug cat that just shit on your laptop.

Tony presses a hand to his chest. “How dare you,” he says. “I was indoctrinated from a very young age, that wasn’t my fault -”

“Oh, just like the mock shield you’ve got in your workshop isn’t your fault?”

Tony squawks. “Who told you about that?”

Cap grins. “Natasha knows everything, you know that,” he says as he turns back to the stove to tend to his eggs. “You want an omelet?”

“You know I do,” Tony says, dropping the topic of his fanning past easily and coming to perch on one of the stools at the counter. “Peter, you want one?”

It takes Peter a moment to realize that they’re talking to him because, yeah, he really is in the room for this frankly surreal conversation. “Uh, sure,” he says.

“He wants bacon and cheese,” Tony tells Cap. He pulls out a chair, pats it. “Come sit down,” he tells Peter, before turning his attention back to Cap. “Hey, do we have mushrooms? I want mushrooms in mine.”

“What is it with you and mushrooms?” Cap asks, even as he moves towards the fridge and pulls out a cardboard box of fungi. “I swear it’s all you eat besides coffee and motor oil.”

“In my defense, the motor oil is mostly Dummy’s fault,” Tony points out. “And mushrooms are good for you. You know, for a Boy Scout, you really don’t like your vegetables.”

“For the thousandth time, I was never a boyscout,” Cap says.

“And for the thousandth time, I don’t believe you.”

Cap rolls his eyes, but ignores him. “Peter, what kind of cheese do you want?”

“Uh, cheese?”

“God, I really need to train your taste buds,” Tony says. “Such an unrefined palette will get you in trouble some day -”

“How on earth would that ever get him in trouble?” Cap asks, and Tony launches into a story about how he once almost got murdered because he couldn’t pick up the hint of almond flavor in his risotto that meant it had been spiked with cyanide. Peter’s not sure whether to believe him or not, and honestly hopes he’s a liar, but it’s an interesting story that gets Peter relaxing, and before he knows it, he’s cleaned his plate of the omelet cooked by Captain America and is chatting with both of them amenable.

Of course, as soon as he realizes this, he tenses up again, but soon thereafter, Cap rises to go for his ‘morning jog’ - “Morning ultramarathon, you mean,” Tony says with an roll of his eyes - and Peter and Tony are left alone.

“Not as intimidating as you thought, huh?” Tony asks, as he grabs his and Peter’s plates and takes them over to the sink.

“Still pretty intimidating,” Peter says, but admits in the privacy of his own head that, yeah, that hadn’t actually been that bad.

-

Now that Cap’s here, the rest of the Avengers seem to have decided that it’s time to come back too, and within a couple of weeks the whole team is home to roost. Natasha is the first Peter finds, perched on a lounge in the living room in the middle of the night, sharpening her knives. “Hello, Spider,” she says when she sees him in the doorway. “You’re home late.”

“Hnnngh,” Peter squeaks, and runs.

The next morning, in the kitchen, Tony’s pouring his coffee when he says, “So, you met Nat last night.”

Peter ducks his head a little lower over his cereal. “Maybe,” he admits.

Tony nods. “You know, she’s not as scary as she seems.”

“Mr. Stark, she was  _ sharpening her knives.” _

“She needs to keep them sharp,” Tony says defensively. Peter shoots him a look. “Fine, okay, I’ll ask her to keep her weaponry upkeep to her room.”

“Thank you,” Peter says, turning back to his breakfast.

“But, really,” Tony continues, “She isn’t that scary. You should try to talk to her some time, spider to spider. You might find you have a lot in common.”

It seems like a stretch, but the next time Peter runs into Nat - in the gym, this time, when he heads down for a jog and finds her doing some frankly terrifying acrobatics over by the heavy bags - he takes Tony’s advice. He’s awkward, and stuttering, but she seems like she’s trying not to actively terrify him, and she gives him some good pointers for the next time he gets mixed up in a fight with someone stronger than him.

So maybe it’s an unnatural bias, or maybe it’s reason, but even after Peter meets the rest of the Avengers, he thinks Natasha is his favorite. (Other than Tony, of course - but, really, he’s in a class all of his own.) Sam is nice, if somewhat quiet, and Wanda is young and entertaining, but they don’t seem as comfortable around him as Nat does, or in this house at all, really. Peter knows the Civil War was a long time and many tragedies ago, but sometimes he thinks the aftershocks of it still linger: the way Rhodey can never seem to muster more than a tight smile for Steve, Clint and Vision’s carefully distanced dance, that flicker in Wanda’s eyes whenever she looks at Tony.

And then there’s Bucky.

He’s a nice guy, too, Peter thinks. At the very least, he seems to have chilled out a lot since the last time Peter saw him. Still, he’s sort of - awkward, at least around Peter and Tony. Peter senses there’s some sort of history there, unresolved, and he’s sure it’s rooted somewhere in the Civil War, but he just doesn’t know any details. Tony tries to be there for Peter, but he isn’t exactly open about his own problems. It’s only now that the Avengers are back, Barnes in particular, that Peter realizes how little he actually knows about all the shit Tony deals with every day.

It’s not exactly shocking. Peter has always known, after all, that Tony kept things from Peter to protect him, and unfortunately, his own problems always seem to fall in that category. But now it seems different; Tony seems worse, somehow, burdened in a way he wasn’t before. Even the simple things - things like watching TV in the common room, working out in the gym or eating in the kitchen - seems to put Tony on edge. It’s not that he’s uncomfortable, not quite; it’s more like he’s aware. Like he has to be hyper-aware of every move every of the Avengers makes, because it’s the only way he can keep himself safe.

There are other things, too. The way Tony rubs at his left arm, sometimes, an unconscious tick. His newfound fear of flares, the way he flinches in bright lights. The dark circles under his eyes, sometimes, that makes it seem like he’s not sleeping.

It worries Peter, but at the same time, there’s not much he can do. Tony - he’s not exactly open to help. Peter keeps an eye on him and waits for it to get worse, but it never does. It’s like a slow simmer on the back burner; sometimes Tony does something worrying, like stay up all night or grasp at his chest, and the pot spits, but for the most part, things are quiet.

Peter’s busy, and he’s caught up in his own life, but when he’s able, he keeps watch. That’s what Spiderman does, after all: look out for the neighborhood, problems big or small.

-

Despite Peter’s renewed attempt at removal from the public eye, the media and attention doesn’t exactly die down quickly. At school, sometimes he catches freshman taking Snapchats of him in the hallways, or lingering behind him as he passes between classes, as though hoping to overhear some snatch of important conversation. It makes him feel strange, being on display, and he wonders who would choose this. What kind of person would you have to be, to enjoy this kind of endless scrutiny and attention, to pick it over the calmer, realer, more intimate realities of a normal life?

Peter’s not the only one who struggles with it. He sees how it wears on the people in his life - May, Ned, MJ. He and May have to find more and more convoluted places to meet - home turns into public coffeeshops turns into bodega aisles or the darkened alleys behind May’s work. Peter barely gets to see Ned anymore, what with living so far away, and the stage that is the school cafeteria doesn’t exactly inspire close conversation. And MJ - well. She’s a private person, slinking under the radar when she’s not protesting for social justice, so Peter isn’t exactly surprised when she stops hanging out with him around other people. In fact, after he moves in with Tony, he only sees her once. Peter’s only been living at the Compound for a week, and he’s still getting used to his new schedule, so he’s late. He’s jogging through the empty hallways towards his first period class when he bumps into her, twirling a bathroom pass around her finger as she heads in the opposite direction.

She stops when she sees him. “Hey, loser,” she says.

“Hey, MJ,” Peter says. “I, uh -”  _ I’ve missed you,  _ he thinks ridiculously. “Long time no see.”

“No shit, Spidey,” MJ says, and Peter flinches. MJ rolls her eyes. “Oh, come on, it’s not like that’s news to me, I’ve known since we went to DC.”

Peter blinks. “You - what? How?”

MJ raises an eyebrow. “You’re not exactly subtle.”

“But - but you - why didn’t you say anything?”

MJ shrugs. “You wanted it to be a secret, so it was. Figured I’d let you enjoy it as long as you could.”

The unspoken implication floats between them:  _ and, now, that time is ended.  _ Good while it lasted.

Peter swallows hard. “Uh - thank you, then, I guess.”

“Don’t be stupid, Peter.” MJ reaches forward to give him an awkward shoulder pat. “It was good to see you, but I gotta get going.”

“Uh, yeah, you, too.” MJ steps back, and moves as if to go around Peter. “Uh, maybe we could hang out sometime?”

MJ glances back at him and offers him a sad sort of smile. “Maybe,” she says. “We’ll see.”

Then she turns and walks away. Her hair is down today, and her curls bounce up and down with her strides. Peter waits until she turns the corner, then forces himself together and sets off again for class. Life goes on.

-

Peter settles into a rhythm. Monday morning, he wakes up, gets ready, goes to school. Hides in the hallways. Comes home, does homework, trains, goes to sleep. Repeats the whole thing over again.

It doesn’t feel bad, but it doesn’t feel like much at all. Peter feels like he’s drifting; days pass by without anything memorable happening, and when he looks back on them later, he can’t remember anything other a vague sort of dissociation. Still, he doesn’t think anyone notices. His grades don’t slip, and he patrols just as much and as well as he had before. From the outside, everything’s normal. It’s just the inside that’s changed.

He’s proved wrong when, one afternoon, when Peter’s in the kitchen raiding the cabinets for Cheetos, Tony says, “Hey, can you come here for a sec?”

Peter’s hands still on the cabinet knob. “That sounds ominous,” he says.

He expects Tony to laugh and brush it off, but Tony sounds surprisingly serious when he says, “It’s nothing for you to be worried about. I just wanted to talk to you.”

Peter’s stomach twists, but he tries to push the worry back and goes to join Tony at the table. He’s got a tablet in front of him, but he clicks it off as Peter sits, folding his hands in front of him. Absurdly, even in his AC/DC t-shirt and old, dirty jeans, he looks kind of like a principal ready to scold a student.

“Did I do something wrong?” Peter blurts before he can stop himself.

Tony’s eyebrows shoot up. “What? No, of course - I literally just said it’s nothing for you to be worried about, Parker, do I need to check your hearing?”

Relief loosens the knot in Peter’s chest a little. “Then what is it?” he asks, ignoring the dig. “You look very - adult. I don’t like it.”

Tony really raises an eyebrow now. “Are you saying I normally don’t look like an adult? I don’t know if I should be offended or flattered that you think I look young. I think I’ll go with flattered.”

“Tony,” Peter says.

Tony sighs, the brief levity leaving his features. “Right. Point. I, uh - well, I kind of just wanted to talk to you, see how you were doing.”

Peter waits, but Tony doesn’t say anything else. “I’m… fine?” he offers eventually. “I mean, you’ve seen me, everything’s normal.”

Tony shakes his head. “See, I don’t know that it is, kid. I know you’re not hiding anything from me, or anything, it’s just - you’ve seemed a little down lately. I know you’re going through some stuff, what with everything going on, but, you know, still.”

Peter’s chest twists. Some part of him is happy that someone noticed, that someone cared enough to ask, but the larger, louder part of him just doesn’t want to talk about it. “I mean, maybe some stuff’s been bothering me recently, but, you know. There’s not much I can do about it, so.”

“Well, that depends,” Tony says. “Want to tell me what’s bothering you?”

Peter sighs.“I just -” He shakes his head. “I don’t know how you do it. Just - deal with it, all the time, constantly.”

“Deal with what?”

Peter shakes his head. “Just - the attention. The media. The -”  _ The feeling like you let everyone down. _ “Everything.”

Across the table, Tony considers him carefully. He looks tired, Peter thinks, but then he always looks tired. Nowadays, Peter thinks he grows greyer by the hour; his worry lines always seem a little deeper every time Peter sees him, whether it’s been an hour or a week.

“Have you talked to anyone about dying?”

Whatever Peter was expecting, that wasn’t it. “I - I don’t need to talk to anyone about that.”

Tony raises an eyebrow. “Oh, yeah? You’re a psychologist, now?”

Peter feels himself go red. “I mean, no,” he admits, “But I’m fine now. It’s not like it - stuck.”

Tony just looks at him. “Peter,” he says.

Peter huffs. “I just - I don’t really want to talk about it,” he says. “It’s - I don’t feel like there’s anything to say. I mean, I died, big deal. So did a lot of other people. I’m not special.”

“Just because a lot of people suffered doesn’t mean you didn’t,” Tony points out. 

“Yeah, well.”

He can feel Tony’s eyes on him, but he doesn’t look up. “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way,” Tony starts, and immediately Peter knows he isn’t going to like this, “but your aunt and I were talking, and we were thinking. It might be time for you to go to a therapist.”

Peter flinches, gaze snapping up to Tony’s. “What?” Tony’s wide-eyed and sympathetic, but it doesn’t exactly make Peter feel any better. “I’m fine, I don’t need therapy.”

Tony offers him a half-smile. “You know I’ve said that exact same sentence before? Probably the same tone of voice, too.”

“Well, there you go,” Peter says. He waves a hand at Tony. “You’re - you’re  _ you,  _ you’re fine. You don’t need therapy. And neither do I.”

Tony sighs. “That’s not how therapy works, Peter,” he says. “I get how you feel, I do. I don’t exactly love spilling my feelings to a stranger either. But every Tuesday I drag my ass to her office and I do it because it’s important.”

Peter blinks. “You go to therapy?”

“Yeah, I go to therapy,” Tony confirms. “Most of the Avengers do. I mean, we deal with a lot of shit. It’s difficult. You’re not lesser just because you need someone to talk to.”

Peter swallows hard. He knows he should be more open to this - he’s read the studies, knows how useful therapy can be, and he doesn’t want to be the type of person who stigmatizes their own problems, but - “I mean, what am I supposed to say? Just go in there and be like, oh, hello, stranger, want to hear about how I failed to save the world and now everyone hates me?”

His voice cracks on the last words, and he’s horrified to realize there are tears in his eyes. Hastily, he tries to blink them back, but they’re stubborn and won’t budge.

For a long moment, Tony is quiet. Peter’s almost beginning to think he’s not going to respond, when he says, “You know, as much as you hate hearing it, you really are new to this. The attention is a lot to deal with, and when the public opinion turns - it can get savage. I know that. We all know that.”

A warm hand settles on Peter’s shoulder. He looks up to meet Tony’s eyes. “If you’re having trouble with stuff like that, I’m here for you. Cap’s here for you. Nat’s here for you. Everyone in this house has experienced something similar, I promise you, and we may not be able to understand entirely but we can relate. There are good and bad ways of dealing with things, and it’s just a matter of sorting out what’s right for you.”

Peter takes a breath that sounds more like a sniff. “What did you do?”

“Well, at first I became an alcoholic,” he says dryly, and Peter manages a weak laugh. “So I wouldn’t recommend that. But, you know - Steve, he hits punching bags. Nat goes off grid for a while. Sometimes I do, too, just lock myself up in the workshop for a while and don’t look at the news. It depends, and it’ll depend for you, too.”

Peter nods. “That makes sense,” he says.

“Yeah?” Tony rubs his hand across Peter’s shoulder. “Good. You can always talk to me if you need to, kid. You should know that.”

Peter doesn’t stay anything, and they stay like that a moment longer, a paternal tableaux, before finally Tony sighs and pushes himself to his feet. “Okay, I want lunch. Did Natasha eat all of the Hot Pockets?”

Peter manages a smile. “I can neither confirm nor deny.”

Tony turns to glare at him. “Peter.”

Peter puts his hands in the air. “Hey, she could murder me with a banana peel. I’m not stupid.”

Tony grumbles. “Well, she is, if she thinks she can eat all my food with no consequences. I’m coming for you Widow!”

He shouts the last words vaguely at the ceiling, as though hoping Natasha will hear him through however many floors of concrete. Knowing Natasha, Peter thinks, she probably has, and is already planning some extensive form of torture.

“I love and support you, Natasha,” Peter whispers, too low for Tony to hear. “You’re totally in the right and Tony is being dumb. Please don’t hurt me.”

Doesn’t hurt to be safe.

-

People say a lot of things about Tony. They say he’s a hero, then say he’s a villain, say he’s strong and then weak, a genius and then an idiot. Nobody, it seems, can make up their mind about Tony, least of all his friends.

But there is one thing Peter knows about Tony that nobody can contest: he doesn’t give up. He didn’t give up in Afghanistan, when he was kidnapped and tortured; he didn’t give up in New York, when the Chitauri were ready to swallow the city whole; he didn’t give up when he was betrayed, didn’t give up when he was attacked, didn’t give up when his house was bombed and his heart was poisoned and all his friends turned against him. No matter what happens to him, no matter what obstacles are thrown his way, Tony does not quit. Like the machines he builds, he just keeps plugging onward, an endless spiral of creation. 

Peter may be young, and he may not know much, but he knows this: it’s admirable. It’s the sort of attitude he’s seen, time and time again, in his heroes, and it’s one he hopes someday he’ll achieve himself. Time will tell.

-

It’s a Thursday afternoon and Peter and Tony are in Central Park testing out Tony’s new suit when their comms go off simultaneously.

“Again?” Tony complains, even as the suit helmet snaps up to cover his face. “Hop on, kid.”

“Uh, I think I can get there myself,” Peter offers, but Tony just grabs him by the waist and jets off into the air. The sudden climb takes Peter’s breath away, as it always does, and so does the view. It doesn’t matter how often Peter sees the city like this, soaring between skyscrapers and tenement buildings - it’s still gorgeous.

“An armored individual is causing property damage by Bryant Park,” Friday informs them. “Civilians are fleeing the area but so far police interference has been ineffective.”

“Okay, let’s see what dude is doing.” Tony slows as they get closer to Byrant Park, swooping lower over the buildings, and sure enough Peter can see thick curls of smoke billowing up above the streets. “I’m gonna drop you on top of this building, you can be my bird’s eye view.”

“Mr. Stark, I can do more than just watch -”

“Sorry, this isn’t up for discussion, kid,” Tony says, and before Peter has a chance to argue any more, drops him down on the aforementioned roof and jets off.

“All right, I’ve got eyes on the prize,” Tony says over the comms. “She’s hovering by the subway entrance, seems to be - oh shit!”

“What?” Peter cranes his neck to see what’s happening, but all he can see is more smoke and the bright yellow of flames. “Are you okay? What happened?”

“Yeah, it’s fine, she just fucking  _ trashed  _ this escalator, I don’t know what her deal is - hey lady!”

Peter still hasn’t gotten a glimpse at her, and, frustrated, he makes his way over the very edge of the roof, hoping even the few feet of difference. He doesn’t want to disobey Tony’s orders, not if he can avoid it, but he will if he needs to. That is, if he can  _ tell  _ if he needs to.

“Yeah, you, Blueberry looking chick, what’s your problem?”

The comms aren’t designed to pick up other people’s voices, but with Peter’s enhanced hearing, he manages to make out a crackly, “ _ Oh, Iron Man. I was hoping it’d be you.” _

“What, you got a bone to pick? You wouldn’t be the first. Maybe we can sit down, talk it out, instead of you destroying Manhattan like a baby having a temper tantrum.”

There’s a faint sound like a cackle. “ _ Oh, you wish.” _

Tony sighs. “If you’re going to be like that -”

But he’s interrupted by a sudden explosion. It’s spitting and loud, and Peter watches as Iron Man shoots up out of the resulting smoke, glowing sooty gold and red. “Well, that was rude.”

“Tony!” Peter calls despite himself. “Tony, are you okay?”

“What?” Tony seems to have forgotten Peter is even here. “Yeah, pipsqueak, I’m fine, just sit -”

And then the comms cut off. It’s not gradual, no fuzzy lines or splintered voices, just sudden, deafening silence. At the same time, Peter’s HUD goes black, leaving the world dull and just a bit shaded by his mask.

“Mr. Stark?” Peter calls, voice thready with worry, after a moment passes and his tech doesn’t restart. “Mr. Stark, can you hear me? Karen?”

There is nothing. The inside of the suit is like a dark cave, devoid of the usual life imbued to it by Tony’s technology. But as the smoke clears, Peter can see the red glint of sunlight off Tony’s armor peeking out from beside the wreckage of the subway stop, and he decides,  _ fuck it,  _ and swings down towards it, ripping his mask off as he lands.

“Kid,” Tony says. His faceplate is up, and his frowning down at his gauntlets, but he doesn’t look too upset, either. The knot of anxiety in Peter’s chest loosens a little. “I think she had an EMP.”

“Okay, I got this, Mr. Stark, you can just chill here, and -”

“Hold on for a hot second, there,” Tony says, grabbing Peter when he turns as though to leap back into the air. “Are you sure you can handle this?”

“Yeah,” Peter says. “Yeah, I got this Mr. Stark, don’t worry. Just take care of the little guy, huh?”

Tony squints at him for a moment, as though looking for a lie, before finally nodding. “Be careful, kid. I’ll be down here if you need anything.”

Peter nods, and Tony pats his shoulder once before pulling back. “I got this,” Peter says again, “Don’t worry.” He shoots a web strand and lets it pull him off the ground into flight before Tony can say anything to respond, not that he looked like he was going to, anyway; his expression is pinched, lips downturned, very much the expression of a concerned father ready to lecture his son. It’s the Captain America Is Disappointed in You face, the one every student who’s ever been to detention is intimately familiar with. 

“Okay, where to first?” Peter mutters. There’s no response from the comms or from Karen. “Right,” Peter says to himself. “No help on this one.” It’s like being back in the little flimsy suit he made before Tony came into his life: ugly sweatpants and a mismatching shirt, a kid playing dress up for Halloween. At least now he looks the part.

He swings down a couple different cross-streets before he catches sight of purple armor gleaming in a window-pane. He takes a sharp left and chases after her and her slow, sure strut. He catches up quickly, but stays just behind her, hidden, watching her movements.

On the one hand, she doesn’t seem to be inflicting that much damage. She’s not exactly chasing anyone, after all, or deliberately seeking out people to harm; she seems to be more in the game of maximum property damage, shooting up an empty coffee shop here, upending a lamppost there, grinding grooves and divots into the pavement.

“Okay,” Peter murmurs to himself. “Okay, I can deal with this. Just gotta - take down the mechanized soldier. Right.”

It’s not like he’s incapable of fighting on his own - that’s not what’s intimidating him. It’s just that Tony usually takes on threats of this nature and caliber, considering, a) they’re usually bitter old rivals attacking New York because they’re mad Tony’s better at science than them, and b) Tony’s suit is a lot better at handling machine-on-machine battle than Peter’s.

But there’s not much to be done, and so, just as the purple woman is crossing 5th Avenue, stepping into a beam of sunlight that Peter hopes will temporarily blind her, he leaps towards her. For a moment, everything seems to be going well - he estimates the trajectory just right, and is barely a yard away when she suddenly turns. He startles, twisting out of the way of her punch at the last second and landing, hard, on the asphalt.

There’s a searing pain in his side as the ground digs into his shoulder, but he ignores it, scrambling to his feet. The purple woman looks unconcerned, settling a hand on her hip as she watches Peter square up.

“What’s your plan, Spiderboy?” she asks, accent thick and drawling. She sounds like she’s from the South, and, admittedly, that is new - for some reason, red-necks never seem to want to take the trek up from Atlanta or Tennessee or wherever the fuck to blow up rich liberals. “You and I both know your suit is useless. It’s just you now, honey, you and me.”

“It’s been just me before,” Peter tells her, and, using one of the Krav Maga moves Rhodey had taught him from long before Thanos had even been a threat, lunges for her ankles. He manages to take her by surprise, and sweeps one leg out from under her, but she steadies herself, and counterattacks with a snarl.

The fight dissolves quickly after that. The purple lady, whoever she is, is a good fighter, and it’s all Peter can do to keep from wiping out, let alone take her down. He hits her ankle, she kicks his knee; he twists her arm, she snaps his finger; he tries, for a brief second, to leverage pressure against her windpipe, and she throws him ten feet into the air and halfway across the street.

Soon enough, Peter’s aching, breath coming hard and fast in his chest. The twinge of worry has grown into a full bloom of panic, but he does his best to push it back and just keep going. There’s nobody else here, right now - Tony will probably have a fix on the EMP soon enough, and SHIELD is on their way, but in the meantime it’s just Peter and this purple-loving weirdo. Sure, she may not seem focused on inflicting civilian casualties, but she’s certainly not actively avoiding them, either, and there’s no telling who could get caught in her high-powered crossfire.

“Come on, little spider,” she taunts as she struts towards where he’s splayed out on the pavement. “Give up now. Give up while you’re ahead.”

“I’m not ahead yet,” Peter says, and dives out of the way just as she strikes out at him.

She growls in frustration, whirling around to where Peter’s waiting for her, arms up. “You’re a little punk, you know that?”

Peter manages a laugh despite his sore ribs. “If I’m a punk, what does that make you?”

“A champion,” she hisses, and moves in for the kill.

Peter knows immediately she’s angling to take him out. He would too, if he were her - this fight has stretched on long enough, and it must be obvious to her now that he’s waning. One good strike will knock him down.

So he can’t let her get one good strike.

This time, when she goes in for a strike on his knee, he doesn’t just parry, he leaps. He throws all of his energy into the air, springing up as if off a trampoline and souring half a dozen stories into the sky. The purple lady growls and jumps up into the air after him, but whatever she is she’s not enhanced like Peter is, and she barely makes it a few feet in the air, hand grasping uselessly for Peter’s ankle, before she’s falling back down. As she goes, Peter shoots a strand of thick webbing; she dodges it agilely, and it splatters onto the pavement, creating a pool of slippery goo that she falls right into. She goes down hard, back smacking into the pavement, and as Peter falls he shoots another strand of webbing at her, two, three. By the time he’s back on solid footing, the purple lady is wrapped up in a solid cocoon like a baby, wriggling caterpillar.

“You little shit,” she hisses, rocking violently against her bonds. She’s not exactly harming anyone with her words but, honestly, it’s annoying. Peter shoots another web at her jaw just to shut her up.

After that, it doesn’t take long for the police to arrive and lock down the scene, following quickly by pairs of ambulances and SHIELD vans sweeping the area. Peter manages to keep upright through the officer’s light interrogations, and to help the SHIELD agents destick the purple lady from the sidewalk, but the whole time he’s lagging,  limbs growing heavier by the moment. So when Tony appears in front of him, de-suited but standing strong, Peter’s not ashamed to say he all but sags into his arms.

“Mr. Stark,” he says into Tony’s shoulder. “I’m really fucking tired.”

Tony’s hand comes up to cup the back of his head. “Yeah, I bet you are,” he says, tone distant and hard to read. Right now, Peter doesn’t care: all he wants is a bed and some pizza rolls. He can worry about what he fucked up later.

“Hey, don’t go falling asleep on me,” Tony says, giving a light pinch to the back of Peter’s neck. Peter forces his eyes open, pulling back from Tony, but without the support he sways under the force of his own exhaustion. “Here, just make it to the car, okay? It’s this way, come with me -”

Peter feels like a tired kid getting carried to bed. Honestly, it’s nice. He lets Tony guide him, the world blurring by in colorful shapes from behind his half-hooded eyes. Happy is waiting for them, door open. Peter only has time to sink into the soft leather seats before he’s out like a light.

-

Peter wakes up to the feeling of someone shaking his shoulder.

“Hey, kid.” It’s Tony voice, rough as though he, too, has been napping. “We’re home.”

Peter makes a soft, sleepy sound, but drags himself up obligingly. It’s getting dark out, twilight falling and casting the skies watercolor purple and blue. Unfortunately, despite his nap, Peter’s still too tired to really enjoy it, and as soon as they get inside he moves as if to go towards his bedroom.

Tony stops him. “We need to get you to medical,” he says. “I should’ve gotten you checked out back in the city.”

“I’m fine,” Peter protests weakly. “I just want to sleep, honestly.”

Tony frowns at him. “She hit you hard,” he says. “You could have internal injuries. You’re going to the infirmary.”

Tony’s tone brooks no argument, so rather than wasting his precious energy fighting a losing battle, Peter sighs and acquiesces. At least medical is nearby, so he only has to stumble so far down the hall before he finds his way into a hospital bed.

“Can I sleep?” Peter asks, slumping onto the pillows. “I wanna sleep.”

“Try to wait until the doctors get here.”

Peter can’t help it; he drifts. He’s vaguely aware of hands on him at some point, of Tony’s voice, of his own mumbled agreements, and the next time he wakes, he’s in his own bed. He flops over on the mattress, taking in all his aches and pains. There’s a bandage around his ribs, but not much else;  _ must have gotten cleared,  _ Peter thinks.

It’s still dark outside, and Peter is still tired, so he allows himself to drift back off to sleep.

-

The next morning when Peter wakes, Friday informs him Tony is already gone.

“Where’d he go?” Peter asks.

“I believe this may be illuminating,” Friday says, and the TV screen in the corner of his room flicks on to  _ CNN. _

It’s a press conference, Peter thinks. Reporters are clustered around an empty stage, and the scrolling text at the bottom of the screen reads  _ REPORTERS AWAITING SURPRISE STATEMENT.  _ Peter’s just starting to wonder why Friday is showing him this when there’s a flurry of movement of screen, reporters pushing themselves to their feet, as Tony steps up behind the podium.

“Hello,” Tony says. His voice is short and clipped, lacking his usual PR-charm. “There’s been a lot of discussion in the media since the events yesterday. Evidently, certain publications have decided to use the events that transpired as some sort of twisted evidence against Spiderman. I won’t even restate some of the ridiculous headlines I’ve seen, because that would just give them more weight. What I will say is this.”

Tony pauses to whip his sunglasses off. Even through the warped lens of the camera, the TV screen, Peter can read the anger in his expression. “Peter Parker is an incredible kid. He has taken all the shitty things that happened to him, and found a way to use them to help others. He doesn’t deserve your judgement or your anger, because he is  _ doing his best.  _ Frankly, none of you are doing half as much as he is to protect this city, and until you do, I won’t hear a  _ word  _ from anyone putting him down.”

The press have gone silent.

“Yesterday, despite what the media has been reporting, Peter single-handedly subdued the threat in Manhattan. I was down for the count. All of the property damage that occured was the result of the mutant we were battling, or from my suit. Peter was not responsible for any collateral damage whatsoever. Any continued reporting otherwise is not only lies but blatant slander, and will be treated as such.” Tony pauses a moment, as though wanting his words to sink in. “I will now take questions.”

Peter swallows hard, turning away from the TV. “Friday,” he says, and there’s a hiss of static as the TV goes quiet.

He lasts almost three hours fucking around and watching movies before he breaks and checks the web. He does a simple Google search -  _ Peter Parker -  _ and holds his breath.

_ About 1,600,000 results. _

Peter gulps. Among the first results to pop up are news articles, most of them posted in the last couple of hours:  _ Iron Man leaps to Spiderman’s Defense,  _ one from the Huffington Post reads. Another, posted by Fox News, is less unbiased:  _ Playboy Tony Stark lashes out at reporters over vigilante damage bill. _

Well, it’s not like Peter really expected for anything better out of Fox News.

He scrolls back a few hours. There’s half a dozen articles covering the battle yesterday, all seeming to stem from one CNN story posted what must have been less than fifteen minutes after SHIELD got the woman in custody. Peter reads through it. It doesn’t explicitly blame Peter for anything, but it certainly seems to imply a certain level of fault, wondering when Peter was trained and by whom, saying:  _ Questions remain whether Parker will take after government-trained heroes like Black Widow or will follow in the footsteps of his apparent mentor, engineer Tony Stark, who seems to leave rubble behind as well as bodies. _

Peter reads through a couple more stories - a blog post from a foreign fan, a YouTube clip from  _ Vox,  _ even a Buzzfeed story filled with Tweets about Spiderman’s ass - before he throws in the towel. He feels - strange. He had known people were writing stories about him, that his identity was publicly known, but he hadn’t really grasped the reality of it, not until now. Some of those Tweets, which referred to him by name, had hundreds of thousands of likes. Some of those articles were trending. It’s not just Peter’s peers who know who he is, not just New York: it’s everyone.

And on top of that: Tony. He’d looked so angry on that podium, so defensive, and Peter knows Pepper’s probably chewing him out for it right now. It’s a risky move, after all, throwing yourself out there and taking a hard stance; it’s why Tony does his best to stay neutral, letting rumors and insults skid right off of him instead of denying and giving the press a spot to latch onto. But only up until now, apparently, because now Tony hasn’t just given the media a handhold, he’s given them an entire ledge.

It’s stupid, and Peter shouldn’t be so mad about it, but he is. He’s not a child. He can protect himself; he can deal with shit. He doesn’t need Tony to coddle him, and he doesn’t need whatever backlash is surely going to come from this announcement. Just as he’s thinking that, his phone buzzes;  _ Tony,  _ the screen reads. It’s a text.  _ Hey kid, you might see some stuff on the news, i promise i can explain it just keep chill about it until i get back. _

Peter swallows hard. He doesn’t really want to answer, but if he doesn’t, then Tony will get even more concerned.  _ It’s fine,  _ he texts back.  _ I get it. _

He plugs his phone in and tucks it into his nightstand drawer before Tony can respond. “Anyone in the kitchen, Fry?”

“Nobody, Mr. Parker.”

So he ducks out and stocks up, stealing bottles of soda, a few mangos, and a couple cartons of leftover Chinese food. Then he cuddles up in bed with his softest blanket and  _ Umbrella Academy  _ on Netflix, and whiles away the afternoon watching someone else be superheroes for a change.

-

The next morning when Peter finally drags himself out of bed, he finds Steve in the kitchen, almost as though he’s waiting for him.

“Good morning, Peter,” Steve says when he sees him in the doorway. “Omelete?”

“No, thanks.” He does help himself to some coffee, though, and then takes his place across from Steve on the table.

For a few moments, they sit in awkward silence. Peter picks at the chip in the side of his mug, and is starting to wonder if he’s supposed to initiate this conversation when Steve says, “So. Some shit happened yesterday.”

Peter snorts. “Yeah, I guess that’s one way to put it.”

“How you doing?”

Peter shrugs. “I’m fine, really. I heal fast.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Peter sighs, glancing up at Steve through the steam rising off his coffee. No matter how many times Peter sees him like this, he never stops being surprised by how human he looks: bed-headed with sleepy eyes, usually wearing his shirt on backwards or mismatching socks. Even physical perfection pales a little bit in the morning.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I’m fine, I guess. I mean, there’s not really much I can be angry about, is there?”

“You tell me.”

Peter sighs. He feels like he’s talking to a therapist. He has a sudden flashback to detention, the grainy little Cap on the TV screen sitting backwards on his chair like he thought it made him look cool.  _ So, you messed up. _

“He shouldn’t have done that.” Peter’s almost surprised by the bitterness in his own voice, but once it’s out, it can’t come back in.

Across from him, Steve offers a sympathetic expression. “He protects the people he loves,” Steve says. “Especially from things he’s had to deal with himself.”

Peter shakes his head. “Doesn’t take much care of himself, though.”

Steve smiles. “Then my point stands.”

Peter frowns.

Seeing his expression, Steve sighs. “Look,” he says, “Tony - he’s been through a lot. More than I think any of us know. There are things from his past that he’s never brought up, at least not to me, and, I mean, I know what’s in the files, but. He’s been through a lot of shit, and it hasn’t eased up on him once. But he’s -” Steve sighs again. He’s twisting his mug around and around in his hands, so that his coffee creates a murky whirlpool. It edges closer and closer to a spill, but Steve doesn’t seem to notice. “No matter what happens, he keeps going. He built the first Iron Man suit in a cave with a box of scraps. He was humanity’s last line of defense for two whole years. And even after, even when that failed, he picked himself up and saved us all over again, regardless of the cost to himself.”

“Do you regret it?” Peter asks, because he has to ask.

Steve nods immediately, though, like he was expecting the question. “Absolutely,” he says. “There - there must have been a better way to go about it, and I don’t know what it is but I know it was out there. You know, if we could have stayed together, if the Avengers wouldn’t have broken up, then there wouldn’t have been a Snap in the first place, and Tony wouldn’t have lost everything he did.”

Peter’s brow furrows. “He got it all back, though,” he says, half a question. “I mean, not that it didn’t suck for him, but -” He trails off.

Steve pauses, squints at him carefully. “How much do you know about the final fight with Thanos?” he asks.

“Not much.” He had asked, at the beginning, but Tony had never been willing to talk about it. Peter hadn’t thought much of it - after all, who really wants to relieve their worst fights - but now he’s wondering if he should have.

Steve nods like that was the answer he was expecting. “Well, I know Tony’s been through a lot through the years, but this - it was a pretty rough battle.”

“What happened?”

Steve sighs. “It - well, the first thing you need to know is that the Gauntlet was not designed to be used by a human, even an enhanced human. And Tony’s not enhanced, he’s smart as hell but physically, he’s just - he’s average. But when we were fighting, the time came and we took the Gauntlet and Tony was the only one who could wield it. So he did.”

Steve pauses, and Peter swallows hard around the lump in his throat. “I was there, not twenty feet from him, and even I don’t really know what happened. There was a lot of light. There was screaming. And when the smoke cleared, Tony was lying on the ground, unconscious.”

Peter’s mouth feels dry. “What - what happened?”

Steve shakes his head. “Like I said, that Gauntlet wasn’t meant for human use. It put a strain on his heart, too big of a strain. He didn’t die, but it sent him into arrhythmia. We had to defibrillate him on the scene, and when he woke up the first thing he asked was whether or not it had worked.”

The silence in the room is deafening. “Well, did it?” Peter presses.

Steve looks almost surprised. “Well, yeah. Of course it did. We’re here, aren’t we?”

“Yeah, I guess. I just - I don’t know.”

He feels stupid only realizing it now, but suddenly he’s painfully aware of how little he really knows about how the world was saved. He just woke up here: he didn’t ask what happened, how it worked, who saved him. He didn’t want to think about it. He just took it all for granted, like everyone else in the world.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Steve says, surprisingly gentle. “It’s not your fault.”

Peter shakes his head, aware now of the heat pressing at the backs of his eyelids. “I can’t believe he did that,” he says. He can’t tell if he’s horrified or furious, terrified or pissed. “Why didn’t he say anything?”

Steve quirks half a smile, sympathetic. “It’s Tony,” he says, like that explains it all, and, really, it sort of does. 

Peter shakes his head, looking down at the table. “I don’t know what I should do with this.”

Steve shrugs. “That’s up to you. You don’t have to do anything, you know. It really isn’t on you, and Tony wouldn’t want you getting twisted up about it. That doesn’t help anyone. That just makes things worse.”

“But I should do something,” Peter argues. “I should - at the very least, Tony should know he doesn’t have to deal with this alone.”

Steve smiles at him. “You’re a good kid, you know?” he says. “Tony does know that, Peter. He’s got you and he’s got Pepper and he’s got Rhodey - he’s got a whole support system. This isn’t on you alone, especially when you’ve got your own things to deal with.”

“People always have their own things to deal with,” Peter says. “That’s not a good excuse.”

“Then talk to him about it, if you feel you have to. But either way, Tony’s going to be okay. He’s been through a lot of shit in his life, and he’s always come out of it strong. It’s not on you.”

Peter disagrees, but instead of arguing he just nods. His mind is swirling with information and he feels like he needs a few hours to just lay down and think. “Thanks for talking to me,” he says. He’s not sure if his other teammates would have shared this info with him so readily - but, then, maybe he’s not giving them enough credit.

Steve nods. “Of course. I’m always here if you need someone to talk to,” he says. “I know we haven’t got the best history, but everyone here, awkward or not - we really do just want the best for you.”

Peter manages an awkward smile. “Thanks. I think I’m just gonna, uh, head back to my room, but, uh, see you around?”

Steve smiles and rises, taking pity on him. “Yeah, I’m sure we will.”

He takes his coffee mug and leaves, then, giving Peter time in the kitchen to stare at the wall and just think.

-

Peter isn’t exactly a patient person, so he barely makes it twenty-four hours before he decides to confront Tony about what he heard.

Though ‘decide’ may be a strong word. It’s more like his big mouth decides for him: one minute, he’s sitting in the lab, watching Tony work and procrastinating homework, and the next he’s blurting, “So did you die on Titan?”

Above his worktable, Tony freezes. “What would make you say that?” he says carefully, after a long moment’s pause.

“I talked to one of the other Avengers. They mentioned some stuff.”

Tony turns to look at him now, with a narrow-eyed little squint. “Who was it?” he asks. “Was it Widow?”

‘It doesn’t matter who told me,” Peter dismisses. “The point is I know. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Tony raises an eyebrow. “Tell you? Why  _ would  _ I tell you?”

Peter would be lying if he said that didn’t hurt. “It - I just, I feel like you deal with so much and I don’t even know about it. I could help.”

Tony sighs, shoulders slumping. “You don’t need to help, Pete.”

“What if I want to?”

Tony sighs again. “That’s - I know it doesn’t feel like it sometimes, to you or me, but you’re still a kid. You’re still in high school. You don’t deserve to have someone else’s shit put on you when you’re dealing with your own problems.”

“Tony -”

“No.” Tony shakes his head, suddenly firm. “I’m sorry, Peter, but we’re not going to have this discussion right now, okay? Clearly someone told you what happened, and now you know. But that doesn’t mean we’re going to talk about it.”

“But really, if I could just -”

“ _ No,  _ Peter.” Tony doesn’t look angry, just resolute. “I’m sorry, but I’m not going to talk about it. Let’s just get back to work, okay?”

So Peter drops it for the moment, but he doesn’t forget it entirely. He steps back, and he watches, and all the quirks that Peter had thought were just ‘Tony’ start to coalesce into a story.

_ I don’t like to be handed things,  _ Tony says, but he takes papers from Pepper, a pear from Peter, equipment from Nat.  _ I don’t like to be handed things,  _ Tony says, but what he means is,  _ I don’t like to be handed things from people I don’t trust,  _ and all it takes is a Google search to find out why. 1998, before Peter was more than a thought in his parents’ minds, a crazed fan gave Tony a stack of photos to sign and they exploded in his hands. The attack was covered by every major news organization, in type and fuzzy color, and Peter watches the video clips of the ambulance leaving the then-Stark HQ, the sidewalk beside it roped off and littered with ash.

Every morning, at breakfast, Tony lays out a series of bottles and takes a horse-sized pill from each. Some of them are vitamins, but some have prescriptions typed carefully along the side, listing dosages and meal-times along with side-effects and warning signs. Peter just assumes it’s old people stuff at first - heart medication, maybe, from the aftereffects of the arc reactor, or just the simple result of aging. Tony is like fifty after all, and Peter doesn’t know much but he does know that’s getting up there. He doesn’t realize what all the meds are until, one morning, Tony drops one of the bottles and it goes spilling all over the kitchen tile. Peter helps him gather them up, and as he’s clutching them in his hands he realizes they look familiar. May used to take these pills, back those first few months after Ben died. It’s Prozac. Tony’s depressed, has been for God knows how long, and Peter had no idea.

And another thing: Tony hates swimming. Never once has Peter seen him come any closer than a comfortable ten foot distance from the swimming pool in the rec area. He’s always fully-dressed around them, and usually holding some sort of expensive, water-sensitive tech, as though to discourage well-meaning pranks. He flinches when he gets splashed, whether by a body-sized wave or a single droplet of water. But there are videos of Tony swimming out on the internet, even full-fledged photoshoots taking place in the shallows of the ocean, and it takes Peter a minute to figure out what changed: Afghanistan. Waterboarding is common practice in war, among allies and enemies alike, so of course they would have used it on Tony. Of course he wouldn’t have broken easily, agreed to be their slave. Of course he fought back, pre-Iron Man or not. That one is hard to swallow, and Peter almost gives up on his mission.

Almost, but not quite. Because there’s always something to tug him back in, now that he’s looking for it. There’s a sea of trauma tucked under Tony’s skin, and Peter doesn’t know if he was blind before or just stupid, but it practically shines out of him, begging to be noticed. Fears and struggles and scars etched a little too deep, and Peter just can’t stop noticing them. He tries not to overstep his bounds too much, ask too many questions or consult Google too frequently, but sometimes it’s hard to bite back his curiosity. He’s a scientist, after all, and scientists like puzzling out how things work, even if those things are people. He sits back and watches, and the more he learns the more he realizes that Tony, at the root of things, is just a normal person. He’s vulnerable, and he’s hurt, and sometimes, he’s weak, but he overcomes all of that to become Iron Man. To be a superhero. Peter needs to learn from someone, and, honestly, he can’t imagine anyone better.

-

Tony confronts him about it eventually. Really, Peter should have seen it coming. Tony wasn’t stupid, after all, and Peter wasn’t subtle; it was a storm waiting to happen. Still, Peter doesn’t expect it to happen like this.

“Why have you been Googling me?”

Peter’s hands still on his laptop. He’s in the lab with Tony, getting some homework done while Tony works on some prototype for Stark Industries. Tony has been quiet all afternoon, but Peter had thought he was just focused.

Focused on something else, maybe.

“What?” Peter asks. “You have Friday tracking my search history?”

“Don’t play dumb, kid,” Tony says, even though Peter wasn’t. He was just surprised. “And no, I don’t. You left your browser open when you gave me your phone to fix.” Tony lifts Peter’s phone between two fingers, twisting it in the light. Peter’s stomach sinks. He’d completely forgotten he’d even given that to Tony; it had been a few weeks, now, since he passed it off for a screen replacement, and Tony had ended up just giving him an upgrade. Apparently, he decided to fix it, too.

“I was pretty surprised when I fixed the screen and an article about my time in Afghanistan popped up. So.” Tony turns fully to face Peter, setting the phone down on his workbench beside the tablet he’d been working on. “Care to explain?”

Peter fumbles for words. “I didn’t know it was a crime to Google someone,” he says, and immediately knows it’s the wrong thing to say. It’s just - he’s defensive, and he doesn’t know what else to do.

Tony sighs. “Peter,” he says, sounding so suddenly tired. “Come on.”

Peter swallows hard. “I was just curious, okay? You - you don’t talk that much about your past, but I know there’s a lot there, and I just thought - maybe I could learn something.”

“You didn’t think maybe there was a reason I don’t talk about that stuff?” Tony says. “You didn’t think to ask me about it?”

And, yeah, okay, maybe Peter messed up, but that’s not fair. “I did try to talk to you about it,” Peter points out. “I asked you about what happened with Thanos and the Gauntlet, and you wouldn’t say anything.”

Tony huffs. “That’s because it’s personal, Peter. And it’s heavy shit, it’s not the sort of stuff you should be dealing with right now, maybe not ever. You don’t need to be worrying about me.”

“I’m not!” Peter claims. Tony raises an eyebrow. “Okay, fine, maybe a little bit, but that’s not the point. I’m not - I just admire you, okay? Everything is changing in my life right now, and them more I find out about you the more I realize I can learn from you, I just - I wanted to - I just respect you, okay, and I’m sorry I went about it this way, but -”

“Well, you shouldn’t,” Tony says harshly. Peter’s mouth snaps shut. “Jesus, I should be at the bottom of the list of people for you to emulate. The sheer number of mistakes I’ve made -”

“If anyone who makes a mistake isn’t worthy of respect, then nobody is,” Peter interrupts firmly. “I’m not.”

Tony sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “That’s not - you’re twisting my words -”

“No, I’m not. If you really mean that, then it’s true. But you don’t really mean that. The only person you hold to such a high standard is yourself.”

But Tony just shakes his head. “It’s - that’s not the point, okay, the point is if you’re going to go looking for a role model you should find a better one than me -”

“But that’s what I’m saying, Mr. Stark, there  _ aren’t  _ any better role models than you!”

Tony scoffs. “Please, there are better role models in this  _ house,  _ Rhodey could teach you so much, he already  _ has -” _

“Yeah, but so  _ have you _ , this isn’t an exclusive thing, you know -”

Then, because the universe really seems to love torturing Peter, the Avengers alarm goes off.

It takes Peter’s mind a moment to process what’s happening, and by the time he does, Tony’s already moving, armor crawling up over his legs as he goes.

“Fry, what’s the situation?”

“A mutant has gone on a rampage in Boston Commons. They appear to be able to breathe fire. Police are doing their best to evacuate civilians from the area, but you are the closest enhanced individuals in the vicinity.”

Tony huffs. “Why is it always the goddamn mutants?”

Peter had left his suit’s nanotech-controlling bracelets in the workshop, so they take a quick detour to grab them. By the time they’re headed to the Quinjet, Friday is coming over the loudspeaker again.

“Update?” Tony asks.

“Unfortunately, there has been a second attack,” Friday says. “They seem to be separate and uncoordinated. This individual has taken up a host in Union Square, and has a metal apparatus not dissimilar to that of the man calling himself ‘the Vulture.’”

“Fuck.” Tony takes a breath. “Okay, which one is more pressing? We’ll go there, and you can send and man empty suits to the other place, hopefully hold them off until we can get there -”

“Or we can split up,” Peter interrupts. Tony glances at him, already frowning, so Peter ploughs on before he can interrupt, “I’m capable of fighting by myself, you know that, and I especially already know how to fight someone like the Vulture. You take Boston, and I’ll take a suit in New York.”

Tony considers him. “You’ll stay on the Comms with me the whole time?”

Peter nods.

Tony only hesitates a moment longer before he nods, sharp and short. “Friday will keep me updated on everything you’re doing, so don’t do anything stupid. Friday, give him the Mark 42.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Friday agrees.

“I’ll come meet you as soon as the mutant situation is handled,” Tony says. He sets a hand on Peter’s shoulder, looking him dead in the eye. “Be  _ safe,  _ okay?”

“I will,” Peter promises.

“Okay,” Tony says again, and takes a step back. “I’ll let you know when I get to Boston. Don’t beat up my suit.”

Then he’s gone, leaving Peter alone in the wide, white hallway. Peter hovers there a moment longer before his mind kicks in and he’s jogging for the lab, where his vibranium-enhanced suit waits for him, ready to go.

-

Turns out that Peter’s not facing someone  _ like  _ Vulture - he’s facing Vulture himself. Peter knows as soon as he gets within eyesight. There’s no mistaking that hulking skeleton of machinery, even if Peter can’t quite make out the face of the man housed beneath it.

The Vulture has a gigantic gun hefted over one shoulder, and, as Peter watches, he turns away from a now-destroyed park bench and points his weapon at the glass front of a Starbucks. Even from a distance, Peter can see the terrified customers inside, leaping behind the counter and under tables. “Release,” Peter commands, and his Spiderling suit disassembles back into his bracelets, dropping him into thin air. He catches the corner of a nearby building with one of his webs, and with the other, yanks the gun out of the Vulture’s greedy little fists.

The Vulture stumbles, giving Peter the freedom he needs to toss the gun aside. He webs it up to the sidewalk for safety, but no sooner has he done that than the Vulture is pulling an even larger, more menacing weapon out of their suit, and Jesus Christ, where does he even have space for that?

“Peter,” the Vulture growls. “I should have known it would be you.”

And - what?

Because that’s not the Vulture’s voice. That not even a  _ man’s  _ voice. That voice is light and lilting and painfully familiar, and, oh God -

The Vulture steps forward into the sunlight, turning their head just the right way, and Peter sees her. It’s Liz. She looks angry, angrier than Peter has ever seen her. Her jaw is clenched and her eyes are tight, like a panther ready to pounce.

“Liz,” Peter hears himself say, as if from a distance. “What - what are you doing?”

“This is your fault,” she snaps, and even as furious as she is, Peter can hear the quaver of tears in her voice. “My father is  _ dead.” _

Peter’s heart breaks a little in his chest. “Oh, god,” he says. “Liz, I’m so sorry -”

“And you know how he died?” she demands. “He was  _ lynched.  _ He was lynched after half of the universe was fucking dusted, because he was in the prison you left him in. Because the fucking guards died, and when the prison went to martial law he was the first one on the hit list. He died because he protected you and your  _ fucking  _ secret identity. And look where that ended up! Everyone knows who you are, anyway!”

Peter feels lost. “Liz, I’m sorry,” he says. “I never meant - I never wanted -”

“Well, sorry isn’t good enough,” Liz snaps. “Sorry doesn’t bring him back. Sorry doesn’t change  _ shit.” _

_ What would Tony do?  _ Peter thinks desperately.  _ What would Tony say? _

“My dad is dead,” Liz says. “And now it’s time for you to pay.”

With a single swift movement, she brings her gun up and points it at Peter’s chest. He just manages to regain the presence of mind to leap into the air, dodging the energy strike. He lands on top of a lightpost, and the energy beam hits a fire hydrant, blowing its top right off and spraying water all over the street.

“God _ damn  _ it,” Liz hisses. She brings up the gun again, but this time, Peter doesn’t give her space to fire before he’s on her. He leaps onto her back, hanging on like a monkey even as she spreads her wings wide in a futile attempt to buck him off. She growls, twisting under him, but from this angle he has all the power, and he manages to lock each of her wings in, one by one, with webs.

“Fuck you,” she hisses, still struggling even with her suit cocooned up against her. “Fuck this -”

“No,” Peter says, firmly and more calmly than he thought he could manage. His stomach is churning, heart pounding, but somewhere in the back of his mind his thoughts have cleared. “Your dad wouldn’t want you to do this to yourself, Liz.”

Liz huffs out an angry laugh. “What the  _ hell  _ do you know about what he wanted?”

“I know he loved you,” Peter says. Finally, he leaps free of Liz’s back, but he’s in control. Even as Liz whirls to face him, he disarms her. “He kept my identity a secret as a thank you. For saving you.”

“You didn’t save me,” Liz spits. “If you hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have been in danger.”

Peter nods. “Maybe,” he agrees. “And I’m sorry for that. I regret that. But this - this won’t change that, Liz. You said it yourself. We can’t bring him back. This - all this is going to do is hurt people.”

“Yeah, well, maybe people deserve to be hurt.”

Peter feels his heart break a little more. God, how did this happen to Liz? Kind, confident, accomplished Liz? She could have done anything, helped anyone, and now -

“You don’t believe that,” he tells her quietly. “I know you don’t.”

Liz just stares at him. She’s got tears in her eyes, and down her cheeks, and she still looks angry but she looks so, so tired, too. So sad. Peter remembers what it had felt like after Uncle Ben died, after he lost his parents, and he thinks that he may not agree with what she’s done, but he understands. It’s a short path from grief to insanity, and even the best can fall down it.

“What about your mom, huh?” Peter asks. “She still in Oregon?”

Liz blinks back tears. “Yeah,” she admits, voice hoarse. “She’s still in Oregon.”

“She know you’re here?”

Liz shakes her head. “She thinks I’m visiting a friend.”

And instead, her daughter had come here, found or stolen or replicated the tech that her father had gotten himself into prison selling, and decided to lash out in her anger. 

“Your mom doesn’t deserve to be left alone,” Peter says. “Your dad wouldn’t want that, huh? So maybe you can just stand down.”

Liz visibly shudders. “It’s too late,” she says, voice thick with tears. “I’m - I already fucked up too bad, what’s the point -”

“You didn’t kill anyone,” Peter interrupts. “There’s some property damage, yeah, but I’m the closest you got to hurting anyone and I’m just fine. We can get you out of this, Liz. We can turn this around.”

Liz swallows hard. “You sure?”

“Yeah,” Peter says, even though he’s not, because fuck the law, right now. “I’m sure.”

And Liz just sort of - slumps. Her arms, still struggling, go lax, and her head tips forward. “Think you can let me out of these, then?”

He probably could, but he’s not going to. “Sorry,” he says, instead of telling her that, “Those’ll dissolve in two hours. It’s just a waiting game until then.”

Liz raises an eyebrow at him. “Seriously?”

“Sorry, but you did kind of destroy a city block,” Peter says. She just stares at him, and for a moment, Peter thinks he’s said the wrong thing until she breaks out into a weak little smile.

“Yeah,” she admits. “I guess that’s true.”

It doesn’t take long after that for SHIELD to arrive with their enhanced cuffs and containment unit. The cops have already swarmed the scene, and are evacuating pedestrians. Some look terrified, but others seem merely annoyed at this latest interruption to their day - a new way to tell apart the tourists and New Yorkers, Peter thinks.

Tony shows up almost an hour later, once Liz has departed with SHIELD and everyone has moved on to clean up. Peter is ashamed to admit he’d almost forgotten about Tony’s showdown in Boston, and only remembers when Tony lands beside him, armor singed and smoking.

“Peter,” Tony says, flipping up his faceplate, at the exact same time Peter exclaims, “Mr. Stark!”

“How was Boston?” Peter hurries to ask. “Did everything go okay?”

“Everything was fine,” Tony says, waving him down. “And I see you had everything here under control.”

“Yeah,” Peter agrees. “Uh, sorry I didn’t check in, I sort of - got caught up in the moment, you know, so -”

“It’s fine,” Tony interrupts, before Peter can start blabbering too anxiously. “I had Karen link me into your comms, remember? I heard the whole thing.”

“Oh, yeah!” Peter remembers. “Uh - the whole thing, really?”

“Yep,” Tony confirms. His eyes are warm from the hooded darkness of his helmet. “You did good.”

“Yeah?” Peter asks. “I - are you proud?” The words come out before Peter can stop them, like wind torn from his lungs.

But Tony just smiles. “Don’t be stupid,” he says, voice curling and fond. “Of course I am.”

Peter has to bit his lip to keep from grinning like an idiot. It’s stupid - he knows Tony’s proud of him, just like he knows May is, just like he knows they both love him and would do anything for him - but still. There’s something about hearing it out loud, so plain and simple, that makes Peter’s heart swell in his chest.

“Come on,” Tony says eventually, when neither of them speak. “Let’s go home.”

Peter nods. “Yeah. Home.”

-

“ _ Spider-man saves the Spider-day!  _ Wow, that one’s weak.”

Peter rolls his eyes, reaching over to snatch the newspaper from Tony’s hands. “They did their best,” he says.

Tony raises an eyebrow at him, plucking another newspaper out of the stack. “If that’s their best, they don’t deserve to be a reporter.”

“Actually, the copy-editors usually write the headlines,” Peter informs him around a mouthful of scrambled eggs.

“Whatever, smart ass - oh, here, look at this one,  _ Spiderman: Hero or Patriot?  _ Why is that a question, are they trying to say you can’t be both? Someone should break it to Cap.”

Peter shrugs. “They’re probably just looking at you for an example.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “Oh, thanks. Real sweet of you.”

“Well, you know me. Sweet as sugar.”

Tony snorts. “Sweet as salt, maybe. About as sweet as the tabloids.” He tosses the magazine down casually, picking up his coffee mug. “You know, they’re fickle little bitches. They’ll change their minds about you soon.”

“I know,” Peter says easily. “They’ll see the truth in me yet.”

Tony huffs. “Yeah,” he says, and then grows serious. “But, seriously, they won’t always love you. It’ll be back and forth, and sometimes it won’t make sense, what changes their mind. But something will.”

“I know,” Peter says again. “Seriously, I get it. I’ve seen the way you’re treated in the media. I know what it’ll be like, but, you know, it’s okay. If the media hates me, the media hates me. That’s not what matters.” He looks down at his juice glass. “I know what matters.”

Tony is quiet. “Good,” he says finally. “That’s - hey, as long as you know.”

They sit in silence a moment longer, the quiet stretching and still. It’s broken, in the end, not by Peter or Tony but by Steve, dripping sweat and panting.

“Hey, guys,” he says, offering a half wave as he beelines for the fridge. He grabs a reusable water bottle, and chugs half of it in what Peter swears is like two seconds.

“Morning, Cap,” Tony greets. “How far’d you run this morning, fifty miles?”

“Nah, it’s my easy day,” Steve says, leaning against the counter. “So I just did a marathon.”

Tony snorts. “I fucking hate you,” he mutters, but he doesn’t sound like he hates him at all. Judging by Steve’s little smile, he hears the same thing.

“Well, I was going to offer to make you breakfast, but now I’m a little offended.”

Tony makes a face. “What makes you think I want you to make me breakfast? I can cook.”

Steve raises an incredulous eyebrow. “Seriously? This coming from the man who once set the Tower kitchen on fire trying to  _ boil water -” _

“Okay, that was not my fault, that was on Bruce, okay, he distracted me -”

“You have an advanced AI system intended solely to keep you safe and you still almost burned your house down while cooking, if that doesn’t say something about your cooking abilities I don’t know what does -”

Tony squawks indignantly. “Okay,  _ asshole,  _ maybe I’m not the best chef but at least I know what food  _ is.” _

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What’s that - well, I, for one, am familiar with the concept of  _ fondue  _ and all it’s secondary meanings, or lack thereof -”

Now it’s Steve’s turn to gasp with outrage. “Tony Stark,” he says, shaking his head, “How dare you, that is a low blow and you know it -”

They seem to have forgotten that Peter is even in the room, so he just sits back and watches. He’s seen them banter before, of course, but never like this, never so easily or lightheartedly, without any genuine anger hiding behind their words. It’s - nice. For the first time, Peter can really see how the two of them could work together.

He tunes back into the conversation to hear Steve say, “Well, if you’re such a tough guy, maybe we should put on the suit, go a few rounds.”

Tony raises an eyebrow. “You’ve used that line on me before.”

“But I mean it this time,” Steve says. “It’s been ages since we sparred, with or without the suit. I’ve -” He pauses, shakes his head. “I’ve missed it.”

Tony mouth does a complicated little twist before his expression softens. “Well, I appreciate the thought, but I’m busy today. Got an appointment with my therapist, and then I’m taking this nerd to cry over Star Wars at the movies.”

Peter huffs. “Liking Star Wars is not  _ nerdy,  _ it’s logical,” he says. “And you’re not fooling anyone, we all know you love it, too.” Peter glances over at Steve, who’s smiling with a sort of wistful expression. Without thinking, Peter offers, “You could come with us, if you want.”

Steve’s eyes widen. “Thats - oh, that’s very nice of you to offer, but I wouldn’t want to impose -”

“Don’t be stupid,” Tony interrupts. “It’s not imposing if we offered, is it?”

Steve seems to hesitate. “If you’re sure,” he says finally.

Tony rolls his eyes. “We’re sure.”

Steve nods. “That’s - cool. Thanks.” He offers Peter a smile, small and sincere. “You guys want something more to eat? I can make something, pancakes maybe -”

“I thought we weren’t deserving of your cooking?”

“Well, if you’re going to take me out later, I figure it’s only right -”

“Oh, I’m taking you  _ out  _ now, am I -”

Tony and Steve’s bickering starts up again, teasing and light-hearted, and Peter sits back and lets the conversation wash over him. Not everything’s perfect - there’s still splinters everywhere, traps and tricks, and there will be setbacks, Peter knows. Tomorrow  _ People  _ might decide he’s a menace again and make an entire magazine dedicated to every one of his flaws; he might get harassed at school again, or attacked by another angry family member, screamed at and put down by a pedestrian with no other outlet. His issues won’t go away overnight, external or otherwise, and maybe one of these days something will happen and he’ll have to go to a therapist to deal with it. Maybe this will get worse.

But now, sitting here - in this warm kitchen, with his friends and role models arguing beside him, food in his belly and sleep at his back, nothing, at the moment, there to bother him - well. He thinks maybe, just maybe, this is all going to be okay.

“- did you just throw a  _ grapefruit  _ at me, Rogers?”

Yeah. It’s gonna be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> find me at nasafic.tumblr.com


End file.
